Past SWAG Visits
Purton Hulks, Severn Estuary September 2010 map satellite image
The 'purton hulks' are discarded barges which have been left on the south-eastern bank of the Severn Estuary just to the north of the long-demolished Severn Railway Bridge. They comprise the largest graveyard for ships in maritime Britain and the largest collection of maritime artifacts on the foreshore of mainland Britain today. In 1906, storms damaged the river bank, and the adjoining Sharpness Canal, then an important route to Gloucester, ran dry. The ships were moved from Sharpness Docks at intervals between 1909 and the early 1970s with the purpose of raising the height of the river bank as protection against the strong currents. They were towed out on high spring tides and released to allow them to beach as high up the bank as possible before being holed to allow silt to build up within their hulls and so raise the bank. |
 ©2010 Philip Blackman |
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New Dispatch,
originally a two-masted wooden schooner built as Dispatch by
Geddie in Speymouth in 1888. It was converted into a barge
in Gloucester in 1939, and beached around 1961. |
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 ©2010 Philip Blackman |
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Three views of ferrous concrete barges |
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Eighty-one vessels remain beached, including thirty visible wooden barges together with a number of ferrous concrete barges (built during the war years, when steel was scarce), steel barges, lighters, schooners and trows. One concrete barge has been rescued for the National Waterways Museum at Gloucester. The ships have all been carefully researched - their owners, crews and history - and each photographed by Paul Barnett and the Friends of Purton (see website below). However, the ships have remained unprotected for years as they fall outside the jurisdiction of the Wreck Act, where vessels must be on the sea bed, and cannot be afforded protection as a scheduled monument, since, resting on the foreshore, they are not deemed to be inland. As a result, they have been steadily stripped, looted and even burnt. There is an active campaign to have them protected in law and their plight was the subject of an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons in December 2009. |
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Photos ©2004 Rob Dean and 2010 Phil Blackman
Further Information
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Friends of Purton - a very informative website run by the group of enthusiasts who research and record the ships
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The Purton Barge Graveyard at the Gloucester Docks website run by Hugh Conway-Jones
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Purton hulks have their bones picked by looters - at the timesonline.co.uk website
www.swag-online.org.uk
